By: Ahmed Moustafa
Director of the Asia Center for Studies and Translation
And the owner of the Eye on the Orient initiative in cooperation with the Al-Ahram Portal
MA in Political Economy and Russian Studies – HSC – Moscow
Member of CODESRIA, as well as
Group of Strategic Vision Russia and Islamic World
Cellphone: +201009229411
Email: solimon2244@yahoo.com
Introduction:-
The Ukrainian crisis was never the only factor on which to build a new world order and new alliances, but what happened in the world, especially at the beginning of this millennium, and a good number of accumulations of unilateral actions and hegemony that will inevitably lead to this.
With the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of the last century, the global balance was disturbed. Unfortunately, the estrangement that occurred between him and Egypt, with Sadat’s decision to cut relations, had a great impact on this global imbalance.
Through the drama of the World Trade Center and the Hollywood films that were woven around it in 2001, which were a pretext in the Western/NATO wars on the Islamic and Arab world, claiming that the region is the origin of extremism and they are the ones who planted it. And based on washing powder they found in Saddam Hussein’s house, and what was spent in this war only, no less than 7 trillion dollars, which was called a war on terrorism, and who bears the bill are the Arab and Islamic countries, and they are the ones who were stigmatized in the end.
Unfortunately, the global decision at the time was extremely individualistic, issued by Washington, which it imposed on all members of the Security Council with the principle of “either with me or against me.” There is no democracy in America with double standards.
At this time, China and Russia had no longer become major strategic powers for a confrontation (in my opinion), but some believed that they might have left the United States and NATO to wander in its wars with the principle of dissipating its power, and this is because there were battles that could not be described as large, in which Russia and China won America should try to fill the American vacuum in the region, and its beginning on the strategic level was the Russian investments in Syria, and its covert entry into the July 2006 war with Lebanon against the entity, a test of the strength of its communications and intelligence, and it succeeded.
The second event, which is always obscured due to its moral degeneration, is the financial fall of the global banking system in 2008 with the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and some other American and European banks due to the scarcity of cash that was spent in wars, including the so-called war on terrorism and the so-called financial derivatives and consumer loans. This caused damage to many medium and weak European economies, especially Iceland, then through Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and also Russia, whose currency was unfortunately linked to the Federal Reserve during the collapse in the time of Yeltsin to please the West.
One of the funniest corrupt situations that American intelligence managed at the time was mediating for drug barons to enter the boards of directors of banks by injecting liquidity into the troubled banks. There is a famous English bank that managed this operation with all professionalism and it was one of the largest money laundering operations in the world, and no board of directors or managers of any of these bankrupt or implicated banks were sued or held accountable for their relationship with the regimes of Western countries (here is the Western transparency that they sing about and which they created for transparency organization)
The third event in this millennium is the colorful revolutions that occurred in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, and the establishment of ISIS by the Democratic Party, according to the leaks of Hillary Clinton and her email, and the destruction, theft, and destruction of ancient civilizations that she left behind. The scenario was known to make the entity a model in the Arab region against everyone’s will. Also, the neoliberal model is prevalent without having acceptable content in the world (there were also revolutions and proxy wars because of energy, oil, and gas, of course).
The fourth event – the global pandemic Covid 19, which we do not know its origin from anywhere, those who accused China of the pandemic to compensate for the failure of their economy did not realize that they had 5 million Chinese citizens with American citizenship, and this was one of the data I obtained from the US National Census. Its purpose was to improve the position of the US Treasury and the largest internal American debt in history, which is equivalent to 800%, through the vaccination industry of an American monopoly. Still, China and Russia produced a vaccination before America, and they missed America the opportunity.
Further, according to several US sources as well as the Russian troops in its special mission in Ukraine, they found out that there are indeed several hidden US biological weapons made in some US biological labs in Ukraine, therefore Covid19 could be made by such labs in Ukraine, and not in Wuhan, China as we said from the beginning.
Why Ukraine?
Putin’s historical romance with Ukraine is well known, one of the founding countries of the Soviet Union, for decades. Still, his 5,000-word speech in his famous dialogue of February 21, 2022, will be remembered as the last and most important cause of the war. It has stirred controversy among some because it is a mixture of a warning and a message of love to the Ukrainian people.
Indicatively, the world has benefited from the riches of the Ukrainian economy. While Putin undoubtedly romanticizes the two countries’ shared culture and heritage, as glorified (for him) during the Soviet Union, he is strategically short about Ukraine’s apparent economic attractiveness—and some of it tempts him, as shown in the rankings below.
Ukraine is an important part of the automotive components supply chain in the European Union, especially in Kyiv and Lviv, where more than 100,000 people work in supplying the business operations of the world’s major technology companies, such as Facebook.
“Ukraine offers a large consumer market, a highly educated and competitive workforce, and abundant natural resources,” says the US State Department’s 2021 Investment Climate Statement.
Classifications of natural resources in Ukraine
1 in Europe in terms of proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores
2nd in Europe and 10th in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves
Second place in the world in terms of discovered reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of world reserves)
The second largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons)
The second place in Europe in terms of reserves of mercury ore
Third place in Europe (13th place in the world) in shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters).
Eighth place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons).
Ukrainian agriculture ranking
The first in Europe in terms of the area of arable land
First place in the world in exports of sunflower and sunflower oil
3rd place in the world in terms of black soil area (25% of the world’s volume).
The third largest potato producer in the world
It ranks fourth in the world in barley production and fourth in barley exports
Fifth largest producer and fourth largest exporter of corn in the world
Fifth place in the world in wheat exports
More dangerous than this is the presence of American biological laboratories inside Ukrainian territory, and here Russian-Chinese suspicions are being raised about the involvement of these laboratories in the spread of deadly biological weapons, diseases or epidemics such as Covid 19, anthrax, SARS, and others, and this is based on an article published in the American newspaper, Veterans Today, entitled that the Russians may find US biological weapons in Ukraine.
Testimony of the President of the World Bank:-
World Bank President David Malpass warned that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have dire financial implications for the entire global economy, including Russia, but said there were some promising factors at play.
Malpass, who appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said an invasion of Ukraine would affect the Russian ruble and thus the Russian people.
“Its per capita income has fallen below China, so when you think about the sanctions, it hits the banks in Russia, but not the oil and gas industry,” Malpass said. “But if they go – if they can prevent the Central Bank of Russia from working, that will have a real impact on Russia and the people.”
Malpass also warned that food and oil prices could rise globally, especially in the West, in response to the crisis in Ukraine. He pointed out that oil and food prices “were already in a fragile phase because inflation is already hitting the poor.”
“This will lead to an increase in demand for energy prices as well as food. We can wait and see what Russia does, and what China does. China is now buying more from Russia and of course, this damages the sanctions imposed by us. The important thing is that the US can offset a lot From his point of view, if you focus on that.”
Concerns have been raised about how sanctions will affect energy supplies in the West as Russian oil has been put forward as a target of potential sanctions. While the United States has refrained from targeting Russian oil in the first wave of sanctions, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Sunday that it was “still on the table.”
This was confirmed by Germany’s political advisor in Moscow, Dr. Stefan Kordasch, “that for years they have been trying to restrict us (Germany) in obtaining oil and gas from Russia while they are buying it.”
Mr. Malpass Brennan said there would be short-term upward pressure on energy including LNG, but said there were other options available in the long-term.
“Markets are looking forward so they can look at the five-year time horizon and realize that there is a lot of energy available if it is mobilized, and there are alternatives to Russian domination of the gas market,” he said, noting that Iran’s global standing is also an important factor because the country is also Oil source for the world.
Regarding what the World Bank is currently doing to help Ukraine amid the crisis, Malpass said his organization has “tools” available to help with the refugee influx from Ukraine as well as assistance programs in countries neighboring Ukraine to assist.
Germany and the conflict with Russia:-
Where the writer and researcher Ben van der Merve spoke in his article about Germany’s position on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and summarized his view as follows:
There are two crises, one cultural and the other related to energy as the Baltic governments pushed for a firm response to the build-up of Russian forces in Belarus, while the United Kingdom rapidly increased arms shipments to Ukraine. But Germany urged restraint, sending only helmets and calling for dialogue with Putin’s government.
In the aftermath of the invasion, Germany was forced to reverse this position, suspending the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia and adopting a tone more aligned with the United States. However, it remains to be seen whether the difference in attitudes will continue to cause problems for the transatlantic alliance.
However, it is easy to overstate Germany’s cultural pacifism because West Germany’s lack of nuclear weapons is a requirement rather than an option (as evidenced by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s efforts to secretly build his own stockpile), and did not extend to a refusal to host American bombs.
In the modern era, Germany was so willing to adopt hard-line positions that it felt it was right to do so. Germany’s 1991 decision to unilaterally recognize the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, against the warnings of other Western leaders, precipitated the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. It is also hard to describe Chancellor Angela Merkel’s treatment of Greece and Italy during the euro crisis as peaceful.
Germany was not too concerned about the danger of blood on its hands. In 2020, Germany sold weapons to regimes that some Europeans describe as authoritarian, so it sold to Hungary (66 tanks), India (sonar for warships), and Egypt (two attack submarines, along with 125 torpedoes). The three countries accounted for 30% of Germany’s total arms exports.
Gas panic?! An alternative explanation for the tensions between the United States and Germany in the weeks preceding the invasion and up to the present time, despite the media stimulus for demonstrations against Russia and its media demonization, is that Germany’s position toward Russia reflects more practical concerns, foremost of which is energy security.
Germany is not particularly dependent on gas, which makes up 24% of its energy mix (same as the European average), but its gas supply is highly dependent on Russian imports, which were equivalent to half of the gas consumed in (November) 2021.
In contrast to Germany, both the Netherlands and Belgium expressed their clear support for Ukraine, including sending military support.
What, then, is Germany’s problem? If the transatlantic rupture is not reducible to cultural obsessions or energy security, it is undeniable that a combination of these two factors played a role. However, Germany’s position was internally contested suggesting that this was not only about grand structural and strategic factors – part of it might simply be due to genuine disagreement over the appropriate means to reach common ends.
Effects on US Markets:-
In a video interview with economic analyst Jess Wheeler: on Yahoo, she admitted the following:
The economic impact remains highly uncertain as is the conflict itself. Much depends on the impact of the economic sanctions that President Biden has just put in place. However, the impact on the United States can be very significant and negatively affect the American and global recovery through several channels, including disruptions to trade and investment, especially price hikes, and energy prices in particular.
American consumers are seeing higher gasoline prices which depend on global energy prices. Only with the attack on Ukraine did we see global Brent crude prices cross 100 for the first time since 2014. Those prices will inevitably pass on to what American consumers pay at the gas station.
And the consumer doesn’t expect whether or not we hit $5 a gallon, but I think most people expect big price increases. And what we’re seeing as we survey the average consumer in the US is that they expect to see utility bills and prices keep going up.
This will carry over to what American consumers pay in grocery stores as they go through producer prices and the cost of producing flour. All of these prices are included in the inputs of goods that consumers buy in stores. And yes, it will continue to rise, squeezing prices in grocery stores here in the States.
Profit and Loss Accounts:-
Liana Fige and Mitchell Kimmig summarize this point as follows:
Putin’s cost-benefit analysis appears to favor changing the European status quo. Putin is on a historic mission to consolidate Russia’s influence in Ukraine (as he has done recently in Belarus and Kazakhstan). As Moscow sees, victory in Ukraine may be at hand. Of course, Russia may simply prolong the current crisis without conquering or finding a palatable way to disengage. But if the Kremlin’s calculus is correct, as it ultimately was in Syria, the United States and Europe must also be prepared for another possibility than the quagmire. What if Russia wins in Ukraine?
If Russia can control or destabilize Ukraine on a large scale, a new era will begin for the United States and Europe. US and European leaders will face the dual challenge of rethinking European security, and not being drawn into a larger war with Russia. The United States and its allies may find themselves completely unprepared for the task of having to create a new European security order, as a result of Russian military actions in Ukraine.
If Russia achieves its political goals in Ukraine by military means, Europe will not be what it was before the war. Not only will the US supremacy in Europe qualify; Any sense that the EU or NATO can guarantee peace on the continent would be an artifact of a lost age. Instead, security in Europe should be confined to the defense of core members of the European Union and NATO. Under the envisioned blockade by Russia, the EU and NATO would not have the capacity for ambitious policies outside their borders.
The United States and Europe will also be in a state of perpetual economic war with Russia. The West will seek sweeping sanctions, which Russia is likely to avoid with cyber measures and energy extortion, given the economic disparities. China may side with Russia in this economic move. Meanwhile, the domestic politics of European countries will resemble the Great Game of the twenty-first century, in which Russia will study Europe for any breakdown in commitment to NATO and the transatlantic relationship. Russia will seize any opportunity that comes its way to influence public opinion and elections in European countries. Russia will have a chaotic presence – sometimes real, imagined – in every instance of European political instability.
Moscow will limit access to vital commodities such as uranium and titanium, of which Russia has been the world’s second-largest exporter.
Russia will use more resources and will not be constrained in the choice of tools. The massive flows of refugees arriving in Europe will exacerbate the EU’s unresolved refugee policy and provide fertile ground for populists, adding to the economic pressures on it.
Russia and China together:-
Ian Johnson and Alexander Lukin summarize this point as follows:
The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are both descendants of large, multi-ethnic continental empires. The twentieth century saw China’s loss of Mongolia and Taiwan following the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. China no longer claimed Mongolia, but still wanted Taiwan and did not rule out seizing it by force. Russia did worse when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It lost most of Central Asia, as well as areas in Europe, including the Baltic states, and many parts of the Caucasus, Belarus, and Ukraine. Russia appears to have given up on retaking Central Asia (perhaps contented with the presence of loyal strongmen running those countries) but wants parts of its European lands back.
This dilemma is reflected in how the war is discussed on Chinese social media. On the most influential platform, WeChat, a senior Chinese media editor said that China should express “understanding and a certain amount of support” to Russia because the United States eventually pushed it to invade, but that China should not openly provoke Western countries to support Russia.
Can China’s economic relationship with Russia render sanctions ineffective?
China is unlikely to assist Russia immediately, but it could easily become a long-term buyer of gas and other resources that Russia cannot sell to Western countries. It recently announced that it would ease restrictions on Russian grain imports, but this has been in the works for some time.
In general, changing the flow of resources will not happen overnight. It takes many years to build pipelines, so China cannot suddenly step in to buy sanctioned goods, such as the natural gas that was carried by the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. But in the coming years, China can offset the sanctions by becoming a no-questions-asked buyer of Russian resources.
Could Putin’s invasion encourage Xi to increase pressure on Taiwan?
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has clearly said that Ukraine and Taiwan are not the same thing. While China considers Taiwan an inalienable part of its territory, it considers Ukraine a fully sovereign country. But on a deeper level, the logic is similar.
Nationalists in China can sympathize with him for Russia’s situation. So, if Russia can snatch parts of Ukraine or install a puppet regime and endure economic sanctions, that might encourage nationalists in China to look to Taiwan and believe they can do the same.
Is the United States likely to work with China to respond to the invasion?
In an ideal world, the United States would be able to resume high-level dialogue with China. It can then remind Beijing that its future as a global leader engages and competes with developed countries.
But there is little hope that this will happen because relations between Washington and Beijing remain very tense due to recent developments. The current situation is likely to continue, with Beijing making decisions of its own while other countries try to salvage Ukraine’s autonomy.
The Gaza crisis that was not taken into account:-
The Gaza war crisis came to complement the reasons for NATO’s failure to confront Russia in Ukraine strategically and economically – as if fate always sided with Russia, just as it did previously against Napoleon in the nineteenth century, as well as against Hitler and Nazism in World War II.
Currently, there is a rift between European countries and each other, and between Europe and America, with the extension of this war of attrition and long-suffering in Gaza, in addition to the exhaustion of economically exhausted countries as a result of the Corona epidemic crisis from 2020-2022, and immediately after it, unlimited support for a losing war in Ukraine, without realizing it. There is no progress on this front, even what is mistakenly called the “Ukrainian counteroffensive,” which has failed smoothly since the beginning of the spring of last year.
Of course, with the approaching US presidential elections, each of the two ruling parties becomes more stringent in its demands – a large number of Republicans see that the war on Ukraine was a failure, and weakened America and made it weaker than Russia and China, and this is what Trump recently stated.
Accordingly, the US House of Representatives finally hardened in its rejection of any new support for Ukraine, and focused only on supporting Israel, so that America does not lose its influence in the world on two fronts. Especially in the energy-rich Middle East region, from which it obtains 65% of what it consumes from the Arab region specifically.
There is no money or weapons enough to even deliver it to Israel and not to Ukraine, and if it were not for the unlimited support from America, Britain, Germany, and France to Israel, it would not have been able to continue this war, according to what American and Israeli military experts said, and it will inevitably end soon. Especially with the dawn of a “new truce” that will be announced soon, as we are monitoring in the media around the world.
According to many experts, Zelensky and Europe have no choice but to accept the Russian conditions and sit at the negotiating table, otherwise the game will become an open loss that will break the back of the European Union. The current German and French regimes, in particular, must be rational and rational, and abandon political adolescence, which shows day after day that “Germany and France” are governed by a group of “amateurs with limited experience,” as we see. Just as the economy of Germany and France is currently suffering, and the scene of popular rejection of both (Olaf Schulz and Macron) for their economic failure and the implementation of an agenda unfortunately imposed on them by those who brought them to power, especially the large and multinational companies in Europe.
Conclusions and recommendations:-
After the success of this process – the world order will be reviewed again, as Russia will feel that it has regained its rights and stolen lands, which were taken away from it during its dissolution, especially in the Western republics, including (Ukraine), which was the food basket of the Soviet Union and one of its industrial fortresses as well. Whereas the West and NATO devoured the three Baltic republics.
European countries will not remain in a state of estrangement with Russia, those countries that were based on the theories of individualism formulated by (Adam Smith), when hunger and cold pinch Western peoples in Europe because of the depletion of wheat and gas stocks, and when power stations on the east coast of America need Russian uranium to run and titanium for the aircraft industry, they will inevitably return to contact with Moscow, because there is no immediate substitute for these strategic materials for them in the short term (economy and strategy always decide, not politics).
Some of the great Russian writers and orientalists, such as Naumkin, said that Russia’s situation through its military operation inside Ukraine, and the West’s attempt to isolate Russia from Europe politically, economically, and culturally, is similar to the case of Nasserite Egypt in the fifties and sixties of the last century. Accordingly, we talked about the necessity of creating new alliances for Russia with the East and the South. Egypt should request membership, even in the form of an observer, in the Group of Twenty, and currently, it is a BRICS full member, and an observer at the Shanghai Organization for Security and Cooperation, with a request to establish a branch of the Silk Road Initiative Fund in Egypt.
One of the problems of the Russians at the moment is represented in the new generation who was born or witnessed the era of dissolution during the Yeltsin era, which is the subject of the Russian identity itself (Eastern or Western), and also focusing all the time on the West without looking at any other region in the world – however, the experience proved that the West wants Russia in a certain size that it does not go beyond.
If sanctions are imposed on the Russians in some respects, and, according to the strategic relationship between Egypt and Russia, Egypt can cooperate with Russia as a third party, whether in producing the goods it needs at the moment or attracting Russian investments here in the form of free zones for export. This is what is currently happening concerning the opening of the Russian free industrial zone in the new Suez Canal axis.
Concerning soft power, scientific research, and the media, after what happened of double standards and the attempt to separate any Russian channel from Google Drive, so that the West does not hear the Russian voice and cannot communicate its point of view, this can happen with any country in the east or south to use false propaganda. The world and the new powers are in dire need of creating a “new search engine” project, and this is what I demanded 5 years ago, parallel to Google, and the major telecom companies in all of China and Russia can do this. For the countries in our countries to benefit from it, I believe that this is one of the most important new projects that will also protect our intellectual property, and develop research and scientific, research and cultural cooperation between the countries of the South (certainly it is possible to establish media and cultural platforms along the same lines, and it is an opportunity for us as Egypt to partner and lead in All of these things.
One of the good things that resulted from this qualitative process is the reactions of the Gulf states, which were hostile to the West, and this is in honor of Putin, which was the reason for the reconsideration and the unprecedented rise in oil and gas prices to unprecedented prices, and to achieve extraordinary gains. Contrary to what America did with them, and this was reflected in the dialogue of the Saudi crown prince, who correctly thought of heading east and cooperating with the Russians, China, and even Iran, in response to the American interference in the sovereignty of countries, and the position of the current American administration on it, and this makes things more stable in the Arab region and the Middle East.
Financial matters, banking transactions, and monetary sovereignty are some of the most important things that must be worked on now, by also trying to cooperate in creating a parallel cash transfer system or that we can enter into these parallel systems to avoid any future situations, and this position also teaches us to diversify the existing currency basket as well. And not to speculate on a single foreign currency. Thus since the last BRICS summit in South Africa in August 2023, it was decided to use local currencies amid the BRICS states to ditch, or at least not to bet more on US$.
Also, cooperation and scientific partnership with the Russian side and the Russian research centers are indispensable, because we know the superiority of the Russian side in mathematics, physics, space, and atomic sciences, and the creation of entrepreneurship incubators between the Egyptian and Russian sides between the actors on both sides, and not, as we see, through intermediaries whose goal is only material benefit And fame, without the birth of real economic and research activities between the two sides.
Be guided accordingly.
